The marginal majority effect: when social influence produces lock-in
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2024
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| Acceso en línea: | |
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| _version_ | 1866916350368153600 |
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| author | Gelastopoulos, Alexandros Analytis, Pantelis P. Mens, Gaël Le van de Rijt, Arnout |
| author_facet | Gelastopoulos, Alexandros Analytis, Pantelis P. Mens, Gaël Le van de Rijt, Arnout |
| contents | People are influenced by the choices of others, a phenomenon observed across contexts in the social and behavioral sciences. Social influence can lock in an initial popularity advantage of an option over a higher quality alternative. Yet several experiments designed to enable social influence have found that social systems self-correct rather than lock-in. Here we identify a behavioral phenomenon that makes inferior lock-in possible, which we call the 'marginal majority effect': A discontinuous increase in the choice probability of an option as its popularity exceeds that of a competing option. We demonstrate the existence of marginal majority effects in several recent experiments and show that lock-in always occurs when the effect is large enough to offset the quality effect on choice, but rarely otherwise. Our results reconcile conflicting past empirical evidence and connect a behavioral phenomenon to the possibility of social lock-in. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_03952 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The marginal majority effect: when social influence produces lock-in Gelastopoulos, Alexandros Analytis, Pantelis P. Mens, Gaël Le van de Rijt, Arnout Physics and Society Probability People are influenced by the choices of others, a phenomenon observed across contexts in the social and behavioral sciences. Social influence can lock in an initial popularity advantage of an option over a higher quality alternative. Yet several experiments designed to enable social influence have found that social systems self-correct rather than lock-in. Here we identify a behavioral phenomenon that makes inferior lock-in possible, which we call the 'marginal majority effect': A discontinuous increase in the choice probability of an option as its popularity exceeds that of a competing option. We demonstrate the existence of marginal majority effects in several recent experiments and show that lock-in always occurs when the effect is large enough to offset the quality effect on choice, but rarely otherwise. Our results reconcile conflicting past empirical evidence and connect a behavioral phenomenon to the possibility of social lock-in. |
| title | The marginal majority effect: when social influence produces lock-in |
| topic | Physics and Society Probability |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03952 |